Grace Goldsmith Wahba (born August 3, 1934) is an American statistician and now-retired I. J. Schoenberg-Hilldale Professor of

Statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

. She is a pioneer in methods for

smoothing In statistics and image processing, to smooth a data set is to create an approximating function that attempts to capture important patterns in the data, while leaving out noise or other fine-scale structures/rapid phenomena. In smoothing, the dat ...

noisy data Noisy data are data that is corrupted, distorted, or has a low signal-to-noise ratio. Improper procedures (or improperly-documented procedures) to subtract out the noise in data can lead to a false sense of accuracy or false conclusions. Noisy ...

. Best known for the development of generalized cross-validation and "

Wahba's problem In applied mathematics, Wahba's problem, first posed by Grace Wahba in 1965, seeks to find a rotation matrix ( special orthogonal matrix) between two coordinate systems from a set of (weighted) vector observations. Solutions to Wahba's problem are ...

", she has developed methods with applications in demographic studies,

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

DNA microarrays A DNA microarray (also commonly known as DNA chip or biochip) is a collection of microscopic DNA spots attached to a solid surface. Scientists use DNA microarrays to measure the expression levels of large numbers of genes simultaneously or to ...

risk modeling Financial risk modeling is the use of formal mathematical and econometric techniques to measure, monitor and control the market risk, credit risk, and operational risk on a firm's balance sheet, on a bank's trading book, or re a fund manager's po ...

medical imaging Medical imaging is the technique and process of imaging the interior of a body for clinical analysis and medical intervention, as well as visual representation of the function of some organs or tissues (physiology). Medical imaging seeks to rev ...

, and climate prediction.

Biography

Grace Wahba had an interest in science from an early age, when she was in Junior High she was given a chemistry set. At this time she also interested in becoming an engineer. Wahba studied at Cornell University for her undergraduate degree. When she was there women were severely restricted in their privileges, for example she was required to live in a dorm and had a curfew. She received her bachelor's degree from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

in 1956 and a master's degree from the

University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of Mary ...

in 1962. She worked in industry for several years before receiving her doctorate from Stanford University in 1966 and settling in

Madison Madison may refer to: People * Madison (name), a given name and a surname * James Madison (1751–1836), fourth president of the United States Place names * Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital of Wisconsin and the largest city known by this ...

in 1967. She is the author of ''Spline Models for Observational Data''. She retired in August 2018 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her life and career are discussed in a 2020 interview.

Honors and awards

Wahba was elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 1997 and to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

in 2000. She is also a fellow of several academic societies including the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

, the

American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest continuousl ...

, and the

Institute of Mathematical Statistics The Institute of Mathematical Statistics is an international professional and scholarly society devoted to the development, dissemination, and application of statistics and probability. The Institute currently has about 4,000 members in all parts o ...

. Over the years she has received a selection of notable awards in the statistics community: *

R. A. Fisher Lectureship The COPSS Distinguished Achievement Award and Lectureship (formerly known as R. A. Fisher Award and Lectureship) is a very high recognition of achievement and scholarship in statistical science that recognizes the highly significant impact of stat ...

, COPSS, August 2014 * Gottfried E. Noether Senior Researcher Award, Joint Statistics Meetings, August 2009 * Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies Elizabeth Scott Award, 1996 * First Emanuel and Carol Parzen Prize for Statistical Innovation, 1994 She received honorary

Doctor of Science Doctor of Science ( la, links=no, Scientiae Doctor), usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D., or D.S., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries, "Doctor of Science" is the degree used f ...

degrees from the University of Chicago in 2007 and The Ohio State University in 2022. The Institute of Mathematical Statistics announced the IMS Grace Wahba Award and Lecture in 2021.

References

External links

*
Grace Wahba's University of Wisconsin website Home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wahba, Grace 1934 births Living people American women statisticians Fellows of the American Statistical Association Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Cornell University alumni University of Maryland, College Park alumni Stanford University alumni Bayesian statisticians Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Machine learning researchers 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American women scientists American statisticians Mathematical statisticians